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If researchers from Rice University and MIT have their
way, the super soldier of the future will be
outfitted in razor-thin armor that's impervious to
bullets. The team of mechanical engineers and materials
scientists have developed a special ballistics material that's
just 20 nanometers thick (a water molecule is just one-nanometer
wide) and can stop a deadly projectile in its tracks.

The material, a
structured polymer composite made of alternating rubbery
and glassy layers, can absorb the kinetic energy from high impact
assaults with startling efficiency. During tests, researchers
blasted it with tiny glass beads that simulated the impact from a
9-millimeter bullet. The ultra-thin layers didn't
just halt a projectile in its path, but sealed up around the
embedded bead.

Why is it so effective? When the composite is
hit, it quickly melts into a liquid before
instantaneously hardening to close up the resulting
damage. That means there's no structural deformities to deal
with. "There's no macroscopic damage; the material hasn't failed;
it hasn't cracked," says
Ned Thomas, a researcher who worked on the project. "This
would be a great ballistic windshield material."

In addition to yielding better body armor for soldiers and
police, the composite could potentially provide more
resilient outer layers for spacecraft to ward off
meteorite fragments and other space debris, andmore
durable jet-turbine blades.